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Some Tweets
Nov. 29th, 2014 12:58 pmDreamed they discovered two new fragments of Parmenides. Unfortunately, they were very minimal. I believe there was reference to more "maidens" (as in the proem), only some suggestion that these were from the sea, like Nereids. I tried to write them down for you, but you know how that goes in dreams: pen's out of ink, paper's wrong, etc.
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A post on the Neos Alexandria board inquired about the minor tradition in which the Nemean lion is born from Selene. This seems to derive from Epimenides of Knossos, the great poet and mantis, one of the founders of the Orphic movement. "For I too am sprung from fair-tressed Selene, who in a fearful shudder shook off the savage lion in Nemea, bringing him forth at the bidding of Queen Hera," (Epimenides, quoted in Aelian, On the Nature of Animals 12.7).
Clearly the import of this is not just the tradition about the lion, but Epimenides' personal association with it, and as a child of Selene. What I had not encountered before, was that Mousaios, another key early Orphic, was also sometimes said to have been a child of Selene's. Of course Plato says that the Orphics claim that their books come from the Muses and Selene (Rep. 364e).
I never thought of all this in connection with Endymion, however. Epimenides was said to have been in a mystic sleep for many years in a holy cave of Zeus on Crete, and to have acquired prophecy thereby. In connecting themselves to Selene, one of the things Orphics might have been doing was identifying in some fashion with Endymion.
One of the most interesting things that comes to mind about Selene is the notion that Her name is virtually the same as "Helen". Helen is born from an egg, which is quite lunar, and her abduction/elopement is clearly a katabasis (descent) of some sort. If there is a particular "psychological" (in the literal sense) import of Endymion's myth, it may parallel that of the Dioskouroi, as well as the Trojan War. Note that Narcissus is sometimes child of Selene and Endymion.
***
A post on the Neos Alexandria board inquired about the minor tradition in which the Nemean lion is born from Selene. This seems to derive from Epimenides of Knossos, the great poet and mantis, one of the founders of the Orphic movement. "For I too am sprung from fair-tressed Selene, who in a fearful shudder shook off the savage lion in Nemea, bringing him forth at the bidding of Queen Hera," (Epimenides, quoted in Aelian, On the Nature of Animals 12.7).
Clearly the import of this is not just the tradition about the lion, but Epimenides' personal association with it, and as a child of Selene. What I had not encountered before, was that Mousaios, another key early Orphic, was also sometimes said to have been a child of Selene's. Of course Plato says that the Orphics claim that their books come from the Muses and Selene (Rep. 364e).
I never thought of all this in connection with Endymion, however. Epimenides was said to have been in a mystic sleep for many years in a holy cave of Zeus on Crete, and to have acquired prophecy thereby. In connecting themselves to Selene, one of the things Orphics might have been doing was identifying in some fashion with Endymion.
One of the most interesting things that comes to mind about Selene is the notion that Her name is virtually the same as "Helen". Helen is born from an egg, which is quite lunar, and her abduction/elopement is clearly a katabasis (descent) of some sort. If there is a particular "psychological" (in the literal sense) import of Endymion's myth, it may parallel that of the Dioskouroi, as well as the Trojan War. Note that Narcissus is sometimes child of Selene and Endymion.
When we see in Helen a Persephone of sorts, the esoteric significance of the Iliad immediately becomes apparent. The Iliad is a psychogony which refuses to remain a private or subjective matter, explicating more fully the worldly consequences which are present, e.g., in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter in more compact form: seasonal transformation, institution of rites.
